“Now, we’re really going, aren’t we, Pedro?”
“Yes, Sunny Face. We go.”
Indeed, he was as eager for departure as heretofore he had been loath. Releasing the dwarf’s feet from their bandages, he helped his prisoner to them and gently propelled him forward by a kick of his own moccasined toe. Thus compelled, Ferd led the way, the shepherd at his heels, carrying the basket slung upon the staff over his shoulder, and his free hand pressed closely against his breast where he had placed the gleaming stone. Behind him walked impatient Jessica, with the lantern, and in suchwise the little procession came swiftly and silently to the end of the passage and stood once more under the free air of heaven. Here they had to halt, for a moment, till their vision became accustomed to the dazzling light; then with a cry of rapture, the “captain” darted from her comrades and sped wildly down the rocky gorge.
CHAPTER V.
JESSICA’S STORY
Though it had seemed as a lifetime to impatient Jessica that she had been kept in the cave, after Pedro’s arrival there, in reality it was less than an hour; and it was yet early in the day when a cry she had expected never to hear again, rang through the room where Gabriella Trent was lying.
“Mother! My mother! Where are you?”
Another instant, and they were clasped in close embrace as if nothing should ever separate them again. Words were impossible, at first, and not till she saw that even joy was dangerous for her overwrought patient did Aunt Sally, the nurse, interpose and bodily lift the daughter from the parent’s arms. All at once her own calmness and courage forsook good Mrs. Benton, and now that she saw the lost girl restored, visibly present in the flesh, anger possessed her till she longed to shake, rather than caress, the little captain.